The satellite industry faces an electric propulsion thruster supply bottleneck, with the largest producer -- Russia's EDB Fakel -- banned from Western supply chains and numerous other EP vendors unable to fill the gap, Quilty Space's Caleb Henry wrote Monday. "As it turns out, [EP] thrusters, especially the Hall-Effect thrusters [proliferated low earth orbit] operators fancy, are extremely hard to manufacture at scale," he said. While several U.S. companies have developed Hall-Effect thrusters of their own or licensed the technology, almost all are still struggling to scale production after years of effort, he said.

AST SpaceMobile's first five commercial BlueBird satellites for direct-to-device service successfully launched Thursday, the company said. In an earnings call with analysts last month, it said the five will provide non-continuous cellular broadband service nationwide across the U.S.

Liberty Media's planned spin-off and reorganization of SiriusXM's ownership structure (see 2406180005) is complete, the two said Monday. They said Sirius XM Holdings started trading Tuesday on Nasdaq under the symbol SIRI.

The FAA's Office of Commercial Space Transportation (AST) oversaw 130 launch and reentry operations so far this fiscal year, more than triple the FY 2020 figure. "And the year isn't over yet," Kelvin Coleman, FAA associate administrator-commercial space transportation, said Tuesday during a Senate Space and Aeronautics Subcommittee hearing, according to submitted testimony. There are 26 licensed commercial launch and reentry operators, he said, with the number of licensed commercial space operations likely doubling by FY 2026. The agency averages 151 days to issue a license. AST staffing has reached 150 people, letting personnel "address some of the growing demands that have been placed on our office." He added that the White House's FY 2025 budget request provides funding for additional staff.

Spectrum Five (SF) dropped its petition before the FCC without legitimate explanation, and only reinstatement of it will vindicate BIU's interest as a secured lender to the satellite company, petitioner BIU told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in an opening brief Monday (docket 24-1189). BIU is appealing the FCC's dismissal of the financier's petition seeking reinstatement of the SF complaint alleging that Intelsat is interfering with SF's spectrum license (see 2404110053). Alleging license violations by Intelsat and complicity by the FCC in allowing Intelsat to continue unlicensed operations, BIU in its opening brief said the fraudulent withdrawal of the SF petition "must not be allowed to stand or Intelsat’s egregious violations will be allowed to continue unabated." The unauthorized withdrawal of the petition "amounts to a fraud on the Commission itself," it said. The FCC didn't comment Tuesday.

The Defense Department has made progress on upgrading GPS with a military-specific signal -- M-code -- that resists interference and jamming, but it still faces challenges in developing the needed ground, space and user equipment, GAO said Monday. The ground segment modernization needs more testing and demonstration, and the Air Force's development of receivers that process M-code has been delayed, GAO said. It added that delays in satellite delivery raise the possibility of DOD's goal of having M-code-capable satellites in continuous operation being pushed back by years.

Albedo Space is eyeing February for the launch of its initial commercial earth exploration satellite service satellite. It plans having a 24-satellite constellation in orbit by April 2031, it told the FCC Space Bureau in an application posted Monday. It said the constellation, capturing visible and thermal imaging, will operate in very low earth orbit of 320 km.

With the satellite industry rapidly becoming more competitive, SES hopes it can close its proposed purchase of Intelsat by June, the companies told FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, according to a docket 24-267 filing posted Monday. Since the spring announcement of the deal (see 2404300048), nearly 700 satellites have been launched and hundreds more are expected before the commission completes its review, they said.

Satellite-based maritime connectivity revenue reached $2.1 billion in 2023, up from $1.8 billion the year prior, Valour Consultancy said Thursday. A big driver was increased spending on SpaceX's Starlink maritime low earth orbit service, as well as some vessels using Eutelsat's OneWeb LEO service, it said. More than 20,000 vessels used Starlink by the end of 2023, and the L-band maritime mobile satellite service market saw revenue of $470 million, down slightly from 2022, said Valour: As of 2023, there were roughly 116,000 active MSS terminals worldwide subscribing to the legacy maritime satellite services. Inmarsat and Iridium have notable subscriber bases there, though the geostationary orbit very-small aperture terminal marketplace has leveled off at around 42,000 vessels globally, it said: It's likely GEO service will become a backup to LEO, similar to MSS. Valour said that 2023's dip in GEO VSAT revenue is expected to continue into this year and that the number of vessels subscribing to LEO service will likely surpass GEO VSAT sometime in 2026.

SpaceX continues lobbying the FCC's 10th floor about how to assess short-term interference among non-geostationary orbit satellite systems. In a docket 21-456 filing Friday, it recapped a meeting with the office of Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel where it argued its technical study of spectrum sharing among NGSO systems justified using an absolute change in link availability as the interference metric. The meeting covered much of the same ground as sessions the company has had with multiple regular commissioners (see 2408150034).